Computers are widely used as communications tools which allow users to exchange information via electronic mail (e-mail), chat rooms, instant messaging, alpha-numeric paging, etc. However, many users find it ineffective at conveying emotion and emphasis, which are important components of personal communication. For example, e-mail and instant messaging are typically displayed with standardized font settings which display a uniform appearance throughout the document. In other words, the font size, color, font style (e.g., bold, italic, or underlined), etc. are uniform throughout the document. While this is adequate for conveying information, it is not as effective as human speech in conveying emphasis or emotion. In particular, the uniform appearance cannot convey certain nuances which might be apparent in personal interactions such as irony or sarcasm which rely upon voice pitch and inflection to indicate emphasis and emotion.
To overcome these shortcomings, users can manually re-format portions of the text message to indicate emphasis. For example, a user may select different fonts, colors, or font styles (e.g., bold, italic, or underlined fonts) e.g., using pull down menus. However, many users find it inconvenient to interrupt their typing in order to access pull down menus and menu commands using a mouse. Therefore, many users decline to indicate emotion or emphasis in their personal communications.
Other users have resorted to including emotional icons, also referred to as “emoticons” in their messages. Emoticons are strings of symbols which are used to compensate for the inability to convey voice inflections, facial expressions, and physical gestures in written communication. Most are meant to resemble a face (e.g., eyes, nose, and mouth) when rotated ninety degrees clockwise. However, there are no standard definitions for emoticons and therefore, the possibility for misinterpreting the writer's intent remains. Furthermore, the emoticons are static characters and are still limited in indicating the intensity or magnitude of the emphasis they are meant to convey.
Speech recognition software can also be used to create text documents. A primary goal of speech recognition software is to allow users to interact with computers using natural speech. However, it has proven difficult to realize an acceptable level of performance in recognizing the spoken command and deriving the content of that message. Therefore, the emphasis with speech recognition software developers has been directed to recognizing the spoken command more accurately. Other components of the spoken command such as voice volume and voice pitch are simply regarded as extraneous information which is not utilized. Therefore, voice to text messages are similarly ineffective in conveying emotion and emphasis to the recipient.